Stop Your Kid From Smoking

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 10, 1999 / 4:10 PM EST / CBS

Every day in the United States, more than 3,000 teen-agers start smoking So, as a parent, you might wonder how you can help your child stay away from cigarettes. CBS This Morning enlisted Dr. Neil Izenberg, pediatrician and author of How to Raise a Non-Smoker, to help parents out.

According to recent data:

One in four teen-agers are regular smokers
Nine out of ten new smokers are teen-agers
22 percent of high school seniors smoke every day

Most kids who start smoking because they think it looks cool expect they will be able to quit long before it is too late to preserve their health. Unfortunately, relatively few who become daily smokers in high school succeed in quitting when they finally decide to try.

Dr. Izenberg advises parents to begin reinforcing the anti-smoking message very early:

Explain to your children how tobacco advertising manipulates people into thinking smoking is cool, socially acceptable, and image enhancing. For example, when looking at a billboard or a magazine ad, ask your child, "Do you really think the girl is going to want to kiss the guy after he takes that cigarette out of his mouth?" In a movie context, "Do you think that guy could really smoke through the whole movie and then run like that without hacking his guts out?"
Build a child's self-esteem and appeal to his or her natural desire for independence by emphasizing the ability to rise above the influence of peers and think for himself or herself.
Tell them about the negative effects that would matter to them - smelly breath, yellow teeth, reduced athletic abilities.
Then there's the weekly cost of smoking. At $2.50 a pack, if you smoke a pack a day, that comes to $17.50 a week. So they're missing out on a new CD, two movies, lipstick - whatever matters to them.
When it comes to talking to your kids, if you wait until the child is 11, it's too late. Start talking in simple terms at 3, 4 or 5 years old. When they're 8 or 9, that's a good time to talk about the bad things smoking does to the body.

Dr. Izenberg also advises that parents start to think about this issue before the child is born.

The pediatrician points out that:

About 13 percent of pregnant women are still smoking during pregnancy. Because of this, about 50,000 newborns are small for their age, and about 2,000 die.
About 40 percent of U.S. homes have at least one parent smoking in the house. This could lead to childhood respiratory problems, middle ear infections, and possibly even SIDS. So before you have a kid, consider quitting smoking yourself.

What if you find you out your child is smoking? Dr. Izenberg suggests that parents try not to fly off the handle. Keep an open line of communication with your child.

You also need to remember that in most cases, at first, smoking is a social thing kids do occasionally. It manot necessarily be an established habit. So for starters, you should talk to your child about the consequences of smoking. What your teen will probably not respond to are warnings about the long-term consequences, and that's because they think they are immortal.